Sambo’s Stones - sustainability and meaningful objects

Professor Stuart Walker, Professor and Co-Director, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University – Sambo’s Stones

Emerging from academic research into product design for sustainability, this paper aims to inform design thinking through reflecting on the nature and significance of ‘meaningful objects’ and their relationship to contemporary product design.

Two simple objects provide a basis for advancing the discussion. The first is a collection of stones decorated by children and placed on a lonely grave in unconsecrated ground in a corner of a windswept field on the northwest coast of England. These memorial objects are considered in terms of value and its relationship to story. They are also compared to a second set of similar, but utilitarian, objects created by the author, which have a specific function and, perhaps, some small commercial value. The symbolic value of the memorial stones is compared to the instrumental value of the functional stones and, these two notions of value are considered in relation to commercial transaction. The idea of commerce tends to detract from the first but add to the second, in terms of their attributed value and meaning, and the reason for this difference is located in the intention behind each object’s creation.

These two simple objects symbolise two, interrelated aspects of product design, characterised variously as: aesthetics and utility; form and function; spiritual and worldly. In product design practice these dichotomies must be interpreted and an appropriate balance found between commercial viability and meaningful contribution; profitability and broader responsibilities – and these must be achieved within the definition of a single object. Clearly, however, our current approaches to product design are severely damaging both to people and planet. Social injustices and ecological destruction associated with globalised manufacturing practices have been widely recognised for the last few decades. Yet, little effective or substantive change in our approaches has been forthcoming, and some are now suggesting that a systemic shift is needed if more sustainable approaches are to be implemented in a timely fashion – e.g. a recent conference on this topic entitled ‘Changing the Change’ suggested that the nature of how we attempt change itself requires rethinking. To do this, new ways of looking at our activities are needed.

Here, the ‘value’ of the memorial stones is related to attributed value - meaning making and meaning through story. These aspects are inherently meaningful and are embedded in the intention that forms the basis of the object’s creation. While the primary meanings of the second object are prosaic – utilitarian and commercial – they too can acquire other meanings over time - personal or social - because they too can accumulate attributed value and associated stories.

The technological products produced today – from appliances to laptop computers to personal entertainment devices – are also primarily utilitarian, commercial objects - but, because of how they are designed and manufactured, these objects generally have a relatively short useful life, after which they are replaced. Thus, they are rendered incapable of acquiring other meanings over time, personal or social. We not only create these products in ways that are environmentally damaging and often socially unjust, we also deprive ourselves of acquiring a more meaningful material culture.  

In this paper, by separating out these two critical aspects of product design – aesthetics and utility – and considering them individually in terms of their meanings, and their relationship to value, intention and commerce, it becomes possible to see our activities from a new perspective, and to offer new relationships and new directions that better align with sustainable principles – directions that value localization; products that can evolve functionally and aesthetically over time and therefore become capable of acquiring new meanings; and opportunities for new relationships between users and producers. Thus, a variety of directions emerge for developing a more meaningful and more sustainable rendition of material culture.

Keywords:

Product Design for Sustainability; Reflective Practice; Corporate Social Responsibility; Systemic Shift.